'Moody' Horsehead & new version of Soul Nebula

[Martin-Devon]

At the end of my imaging session around 2.00am on Sunday morning I swung round to the Horsehead (IC434) just to see how it would frame in my Atik460 - it looked pretty good so I banged in 40 min of H-alpha subs - far from optimal since still relatively little data, the mount was now on the wrong side of the meridian (I didn't want to flip & have to realign all over again) and PHD was also not reset, so I was fairly pleased with the outcome given the situation. I will go back though & do this "properly" soon. I processed in Photoshop to give a slightly darker appearance than you normally see for H-alpha versions of the Horsehead - may not be to everybody's taste, but gives it a sort of moody feel in my opinion.

I've also tagged on an updated version of the Soul Nebula that I'd posted a while ago, but have subsequently toned down the "loud pedals" a bit to produce this quieter version.

Thanks for looking,

Martin

[stevetynant]

stunning Martin - I think thats the nicest, most visually appealing image of the Horse head I've ever seen - well done

[Gina]

I think they're really beautiful - lovely images

[sologuitarist61]

Fantastic images Martin and the Horsehead looks beautiful

[TakMan]

Already looks smooth Martin, despite the lack of time spent. Also like the 'colourisation' of the Horsehead presented here... (looks purple/lilac 'duotone' on my monitor... intentional ?)

What were the sub lengths for this(?) and I presume you were at the native f/5 on the Tak...?

[symesie04]

I really like the horsehead. Looks fabulous not sure if that is because its just unusual to see it depicted in this tone. But to me it shows off some of the more subtle wisps that seem to get lost in the brighter images. Really nice Soul as well.

[Gina]

Looks Lovely in Lilac

[Martin-Devon]

I appreciate the feedback from everybody!

Takman - yes the "colourisation" as you phrase it was intentional - there are lots of black/grey/white H-alpha horsehead images around, many very good, but I did not want to just replicate another image. I'm still quite a novice with Photoshop and am experimenting a bit to see what comes out. With this version of my horsehead by dabbling around a bit I managed to squeeze out a nice hue that I've not seen before and I thought it set if off nicely. It's not to everybody's taste, I realize that - but as we all know in astroimaging personal preference is a license we can all exercise! In terms of subs, I started off with just a couple of 5 min subs, liked what I saw, did a couple more at 5 mins, then 2 lots of 10 mins, so just 40 minutes in total - by this time since I was way past the meridian with my mount on the wrong side & at a funny angle so I called it a night. I used the Tak with it's reducer so this is at F 3.6

[Andyfx]

Both fantastic

[Gina]

I like the lilac - makes a nice change from shades of grey

[stellawolf]

Nice pair of images well done